Deoksugung Palace Photo Shoot

While living in Seoul, we were lucky enough to be asked to model for our friend who was running a photography workshop. That we were a couple of months from actually getting engaged for real, it was a nice opportunity to get some nice photos for free!

Now revisiting the photos, over a year later, they offer a beautifully reminder into mine and Emsu's time in Korea. The photos were taken Deoksugung Palace in City Hall in Seoul, a little oasis tucked away from the hustle bustle of the city.

Check out Dustin Cole's portfolio, and if in Seoul he is available for hire here

Exotic Fashion: Fashion and Exotic Shorthairs

Outfit

Denim jacket and dress - Korean street market, circa 2011

Bracelet - Modcloth

Heels - Jeffrey Campbell

Spent the day working from home, and took a timeout for a brief photoshoot with little Lavender. My wardrobe is primarily constructed of Korean fashion labels, since Raus and I lived in Seoul for 4 years. Korean clothes are cute and often incredibly cheap, so I have a closetful of similar items. 

I've tried to figure out a way to get my fix for Korean clothes while living in the states again, but have had trouble finding a site that delivers the quality + cheapness of many of my favorite streets stalls. You can find similar items at Coco Fashion though. I think I bought about 12 items from there at once, and out of all the pieces, maybe 2 were of a lower quality than I expected. Still wearable though ;)

Cooking Korean: Black Bean Noodles and Korean Pancakes

I grew up eating Korean food. My mom is Korean and made sure that her two girls would be able to eat kimchi and spicy food as well as she could. So, food-wise, I was in heaven when I first moved to Seoul in 2008, and gained 10 pounds within the first 2 months. Raus, on the other hand, was not exposed to Korean food until he moved to Korea, and it took him a little time to develop his own taste for the fermented goodness that makes up a lot of Korean cuisine. There are still a few things he's not a huge fan of, but one thing he is always game for is a heaping bowl of jjajjangmyun, or black bean noodles.

If you know your Korean food, you may also know that jajjangmyun is actually "Chinese Korean food" not straight up Korean…even though they serve it all over the place in Korea and maybe at a handful of places in China. But that's not important; what's important is that it's super delicious AND pretty easy to make, which also makes it AmAZiNg (sticky caps for emphasis).

The recipe I used was modified from Beyond Kimchee, a wonderful Korean food blog. If you want to make her recipe please click here. I followed it almost exactly, but you'll be able to tell from the photos that I somehow doubled on the amount of veggies and used the wrong kind of noodles. I assure you, it still tasted like Korea!  Most of the ingredients are found in your neighborhood grocery store, but you will probably need to venture to an Asian food store for the black bean paste and the proper noodles.

The recipe I used for the Korean pancakes (or pajeon) can be found here. It was modified heavily because I didn't decide to make this until the last minute and lacked some of the ingredients, but as long as you have flour, green onions, and soy sauce, you're golden!